


To Strike Oil

by deanisabottom



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caring Castiel (Supernatural), Emotionally Hurt Sam Winchester, Episode: s09e11 First Born, M/M, Sam Winchester Has a Crush on Castiel, Wing Kink, Wing Oil, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26458645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanisabottom/pseuds/deanisabottom
Summary: Sam was wrapped in the warmth of two strong, downey, black wings. All his thoughts drifted away as the warm oil dripped into his mouth. Cradled into Cas’s arms he felt safe, secure.Set during the season 9 episode First Born
Relationships: Castiel/Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	1. Together

Saying Sam was pissed was the understatement of the year. He was furious at Dean for tricking him, for betraying him. But as pissed as Sam was about what Dean did, he was just as pissed at himself for letting what happened to Kevin happen. Deep down Sam knows that it’s not his fault, it’s not Dean’s fault either, and Sam will stop at nothing to make sure that Gadreel pays for what he did to Kevin. Sam would never forgive himself for abandoning Kevin when Dean was in purgatory just as he will never forgive himself for the death of Kevin.

\---------------

Sam entered the bunker only to find Cas sitting at the map table making a disappointed face at his PB&J.  
“Hey,” Sam said in an amused tone.

“Tastes like molecules,” Oh Cas ever the conversationalist. During their many healing sessions Sam has grown quite fond of Cas and the two have become closer.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“When I was human, you know, I had to eat constantly. It was kind of annoying.” “Yeah, a lot of human things are pretty annoying.”

“But...I enjoyed the taste of food, particularly peanut butter with grape jelly, not jam. Jam I found unsettling.” Sam hopped up on the table so he could get more comfortable.

“So, what? Now you can't taste PB and J?”

“No, I-I taste every molecule.”

“Not the sum of its parts, huh?”

“It's overwhelming. It's disgusting,” Cas got a longing look in his eyes. “I miss you, PB and J.” Cas suddenly stood up. “We need to continue your healing. We're almost done.”

Sam had become used to these healing sessions, he even began to look forward to them. There was something about being so close to the angel that made Sam feel calm. Sam had to hold himself still as Cas raised his hand to Sam’s head. The last thing he needed was to embarrass himself by seeming over-eager for these moments. Cas laid two fingers on Sam’s forehead and the feeling of grace seeped into Sam’s soul. He would never get used to this feeling.

Sam could feel Cas’s concentration wain. Opening his eyes he saw a concerned look on Cas’s face. “What?”

“Nothing.” Cas was so blatantly lying. Sam slapped his hand away from his forehead, almost immediately missing the comforting touch.

“You're a terrible liar.”

“That is not true. I once deceived and betrayed both you and your brother.”

Sam didn’t need a reminder of that event. “Okay, that's not the point. Cas, what's wrong?”

“I noticed something. It's, uh... It's resonating inside you.”

Sam’s heart skipped a beat. He knew Cas could pick up on emotions, feelings, he had just hoped that the angel was so concentrated on the task at hand that he wouldn’t notice. “What?”

“Something angelic.” Okay not what Sam was expecting to hear but he could deal with this.

“Okay, uh, what the hell does that mean?”

“Maybe we should call Dean.” That is not going to happen. Sam can’t even bear to think of Dean.

Standing up from the table and sitting in a chair Sam replies “No. He wanted to go, and he's gone. We'll handle this.”

He looked at Cas and gave a small smile. They don’t need Dean. They can do this themselves.


	2. Let's Get To Work

Sam was busy looking for books on what could be going on when Cas said “I've found, well, something. It's a detail about when angels leave their vessels...I think. It's, uh, Enochian, which can be a bit flowery. ‘And the departed shall remain, and the remains shall be the departed’,” Okay, that's something they can work with.

“Okay, so, when an angel leaves a vessel, they leave behind a piece of themselves. Like, uh...like an angelic fingerprint.”

“Whatever you want to call it, this piece of the departed contains Grace.”

“Wait, you're saying there's angelic Grace inside of me?” This didn’t freak Sam out as much as it might have a few years ago. Going through the trials put Sam through a lot. It would take more than just some Grace in him to freak him out.

“Yes. But it's fading each time I heal you.”

“Okay. Is that good or bad?”

“Well, it's harmless. But the Grace itself... might be helpful.”

Cas set down the book he was reading and picked up a file titled 'On the Inner Workings of Angels'. “According to this, we may be able to use the Grace that remains inside you to track Gadreel...If we can extract it.”

“How would we do that?”

“Well...painfully.” Just as Sam had feared. Cas holds up a picture of a huge syringe with a 4-inch long needle. “The Men of Letters believed that you could perform a tracking spell with extracted Grace, but they were never able to test the theory.” Well, good thing that they have Sam.

“Well, they didn't have a guinea pig, but we do.”

Cas looked up very confused. “You have a guinea pig? Where?” he demanded. Sam tried his best not to laugh at the angel's way of taking things verbatim.

“Me, Cas. I'm the guinea pig.”

“Oooh,” Sam could swear he saw a look of disappointment in Cas’s face. He made a mental note to take Cas to a pet store one day. He leaned in to get a closer look at the formidable needle. “Any idea where that is?” Cas said.  
With no idea where to even begin searching Sam set off on his scavenger hunt.  
\---------------

“Sam, may I ask you a question?”

Climbing down the stairs to the bunker Sam replies, “You just did.”

“Can I ask you another question?”

Amused Sam answers, “Well, technically, you, yeah, go ahead. What's up?”

They stop in the doorway to the hall and face each other.

“Sam, the trials,” Sam immediately regrets letting Cas off the hook, he does not want to talk about the trials. “You chose not to go through with them for a reason, didn't you? You chose to live rather than to sacrifice yourself. You and Dean... You chose each other.” The thoughts of what Dean did to him radiate in his mind.

“Yeah, I did. We did. And then Dean made a choice for me.” Sam walked off clearly not wanting to continue down this path of conversation. Cas must have not gotten the message.

“What Dean did-”

Sam interrupts, not wanting to hear someone defend Dean again. “It doesn't matter what Dean did. Look, I could have put a stop to all this, Cas. I could have closed the gates of hell!” Sam was frustrated now and stalked down the hall to the medical facility.

“Oh, Sam,” Cas said in an irritated voice knowing where this was headed 

“Dean's gone, okay? This is on me now, and if I can find Gadreel. I can fix this,” he sets a box down on a table next to a gurney. Sam begins to unbutton his plaid shirt leaving him in just a thin t-shirt. In his frustration, he misses the appreciating look on Cas’s face as he takes in the view. “Now being a human means settling your debts,” Sam reached over to the box and handed it to Cas as he sat down on the gurney. “Let's start balancing the books.”

After a moment of hesitation, Cas opened the metal box to reveal the large syringe.


	3. Pain Before Pleasure

Laying down with Cas over him Sam had to keep his mind from traveling to inappropriate places. That became pretty easy once Castiel stuck a huge needle into his neck. A small gasp left Sam’s mouth from the sudden pain.

“Now comes the part that will actually hurt. I'm gonna begin the extraction.” Cas seemed to be concerned about what was to come. He slowly pulled back the plunger of the needle and pain radiated throughout Sam’s body. It felt like someone was ripping his atoms apart. Sam tried his hardest to not cry out in pain.

“Is it working?” He needed to know. If it wasn’t then this horrible pain could stop.

“Yeah,” Cas said in a way that made it clear that he wasn’t saying all the needed to be said.

“But?”

“I-I need to push the needle in deeper. We need more Grace in order to cast the spell.” Cas didn’t seem like he wanted to do this but Sam knew it was what needed to be done.

Bracing himself for the oncoming pain Sam said, ”Okay. Do it.”

“Sam, if I get too close to-”

“Damn it, Cass! Just do it.” Cas slowly pushed the needle deeper and started to pull back on the plunger again. Suddenly, Sam's body lurches. Images of what happened when Gadreel was possessing him to flash across his mind. The pain that he endured for the trials seems like nothing compared to this. Then it stopped. The needle gone Sam quickly reached his hand out to touch the spot that it had just been in.  
“What the hell was that?”

In a sad tone, Cas replied, “Your body is regressing to the state it was in before Gadreel.” Sam didn’t care about that. All that mattered was that they had enough Grace. They had to find Gadreel.

“Do we have enough Grace for the summoning spell?”

“Sam,” Cas started to say.

Not wanting to hear it Sam demanded, “Do we or not, Cas?”  
Cas looked down at the syringe.“No.”

“Then keep going.” Sam bore himself for another onslaught of excruciating pain. Another set of seizing hit Sam as the needle dug deeper into his neck, trying to get the needed Grace.

“Sam? Sam?!” A faint, scared voice made its way through the pain.

Sam knew that Cas wanted to stop. “Keep going.” he urged on.

“Why?”

“We- we- we have to find Gadreel.”

Cas slowly removed the needle from Sam's neck trying not to hurt the man anymore.”No. Why must the Winchesters run toward death?”

Knowing Cas was planning on stopping he grabbed the syringe and pulled Cas back toward his neck.”No, don't. Don't. Don't stop.” The desperation to find Gadreel was stronger than the pain he was in.

“Sam, when I was human, I died, and that showed me that life is precious, and it must be protected at all costs, even a life as,” Cas paused for a second to think of a fitting word, “as pig-headed as a Winchester's.”

“My life's not worth any more than anyone else's, not yours or Dean's,” thinking of what happened while Gadreel possessed him he added, “or Kevin's. Please. Please, help me do one thing right. Keep going,” Sam begged. Cas hesitated for a second and then plunged the needle in further. Sam couldn’t hold back the scream that barreled through his chest. The pain only lasted a little while longer.

“Hold on. This may pinch.” Cas said in a caring voice.

“Cas, what the hell?” Sam deep down inside knew that they didn’t have enough grace for the spell. Two fingers touched his forehead and he felt Cas’s grace flow through him and heal the wound on his neck. Sam still felt drained, exhausted. “Cas. What the hell was that?”

“I've healed your wounds completely.”

Well duh Sam, thought to himself. “And the Grace?”

“Well, whatever Grace was inside you is gone now. What's left of Gadreel is in here. We'll just have to try the spell with what we have.”

“Damn it.”

Cas placed the syringe full of grace back into the metal box. “Sam, I want Gadreel to pay as much as you do. But nothing is worth losing you. You know, being human, it didn't just change my view of food. It changed my view of you.” Where was this going? Cas hesitated for a second and corrected himself. “I mean, I can relate now to how you feel.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The only person who has screwed things up more consistently than you...is me. And now I know what that guilt feels like. And I know what it, I know what it means to feel sorry, Sam. I am sorry.”

“I know.” Sam knew that Cas was truly sorry that he couldn’t do what Sam had asked of him. And Sam also knew that that was too much to ask of the angel.

“You know, old me -- I would have just kept going. I would've jammed that needle in deeper until you died because the ends always justified the means. But what I went through, well, that PB&J taught me that angels can change, so...who knows? Maybe Winchesters can, too.” Cas turned his back to walk out the door.

“Hey, Cas,” The angel turned back around to look at Sam. “Uh, thanks, for uh, for um, everything.” Sam was usually good at talking, it was Dean that always sucked at it. But Sam just couldn’t find the words to express his gratitude to Cas.

Maybe it was the pain he just went through or Cas’s fond words but Sam reached a hand out, Sam pulled Cas closer. He reached a hand up to Cas’s face and slowly pulled his face in closer. Their lips touched for a brief moment, merely a brush of their lips. Sam pulled away expecting to see a confused look on the angel's face. Instead, he found a small smile.


End file.
